Milk Production and dairy cultures

Milk Production and dairy cultures

Postby germanforestgump » Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:14 pm

Why is Milk Production and its further processing craftmanship an important topic for "The Knowledge"?

1. Milk Production takes raw plant material, which is not digestible for humans and transformes it to high-value proteine and fat nutrition ressources for a relevant part of mankind, specially in areas which are not possible to plow for field crops (erosion vulnerable soils at coasts, dry stormy grasslands or mountain sides).

2. Milk Production has a strong influence on wide landscapes with positive and negative side-effects.
Therefore it is important to handle dairy stocks and the belonging technical methods with responsibility on a high expert level.

3. Milk Production has a history over about 10.000 years as we know today.
It has created holistic biotops with various local animal races and specific dairy cultures over most different climate and vegetation zones.

4. Modern dairy industry provides nutrition and income for several millions of people, but is vulnerable by technical, biological and ecological problems.
The important role dairy industry plays in the worldwide economy is here perfectly described by H. Schelhaas, i hope he will accept i set a link here to his text:
"The dairy industry in a changing world": https://www.ilri.org/InfoServ/Webpub/fu ... chap1.html

5. Because modern dairy industry is extremely competitive, driven mostly by profit, it is on the way to destroy its genetic, biologic, ecologic and cultural basics.
If it would fail in future, there will be no back-up-levels as a fall-back security net anymore.

For this reasons, a platform like "The Knowledge" may be helpful for a debate how to:

- drive attention to the problems,
- collect and document basic informations,
- offer a survey on and access to sources of knowledge and craftmanship around milk production,
- encourage debates how to solve problems and avoid or overcome risks,
- motivate citizens, officials and NGOs to engage for sustainable, resilient and responsible ways of milk production.

Some elements for preventing milk production from hazards may be:

- rescue the genetic ressources of all dairy animals around the world:
as many as possible variations of cattles, yaks, buffaloes, goats, sheeps, camels, horses and reindeers!
- implementing ecological and social minimal standards,
- fair trade conditions for traditional dairy cultures,
- protect against environmental, socio-economic and ethic dumping methods,
- regional crisis intervention teams against risks like fire, flood, snowstorm, diseases, chemical and radioactive pollution, and breakdown of water and energy supply,
- conserving living examples of typical traditional dairy farms in every region,
- documenting traditional milk production technics in interactive museums,
- teach them as a part of professional educations,
- evolving innovations making modern dairy economy more sustainable and resilient...
germanforestgump
 
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 12:55 pm

Reconstructing dairy industry on greenland from scratch -

Postby germanforestgump » Sat Jan 30, 2016 5:10 pm

- after 500 years!
Climate change makes it possible!

http://www.progressivedairy.com/blogs/r ... -greenland

But: would this not be a chance to rescue rare cattle breeds from Iceland, the Faroers, Scandinavia, Siberia or Himalaya?
Maybe a crossed-breed from those had a bigger chance to help their farmers to survive the next climate change and civilisation breakdown?

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/06 ... odiversity

Very interesting is the linked paper about the fate of the Yakutian cattle, who is able to survive -50°C, if properly cared for:
http://ir.library.tohoku.ac.jp/re/bitst ... 9-0032.pdf
germanforestgump
 
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 12:55 pm

How to start a little Milk-Production for Selfsufficiency

Postby germanforestgump » Tue Feb 09, 2016 4:11 pm

Holding only one cow alone is possible, but cruel.
So You should calculate all basic needs for at least two cows.
Here a short survey on what You need, before Your first two cows enter Your little farm:

- basic knowledge how to care for animals and, if a civilisated state still exist...
- a registration at Your agricultural authority to get a farm registration number an the membership in the livestock-diseases-ensurance
- a secure pure water supply for the delivery of at least 100l water per cow/day and the equipment to offer it (pumps, pipelines, bassins, water-wagon,...)
- the guaranteed access to a grazing meadow of at least 1 hectar per cow
- a secure fence around it
- the possibility to earn or buy any additional food You need to overcome seasons without vegetation growing (winter, dry summer)
- a shelter for the cows and for the food stock
- a leading and fixing rope for every cow; ideal a halter with a panic hook
- security boots to protect Your feet and practical working clothes
- a wheelbarrow, some pitchforks and some buckets
- a pocketknife for offcutting straw- and haybundles, a special hoof-knife for correcting hooves
- a brush for the cow´s coat, some soft tovels for cleaning the udder, tit-creme and desinfection dip
- some buckets to milk in, ideal made of nirosta-steel, and a low stool to sit on while milking
- equipment to filter, cool and further processing the milk
- maybe a little milking machine, powered by electricity or by tractor
- if You will breed the calves seperately, a box and a suckling-bucket for every calf You expect in one season
- two soft and clean short ropes to support calf birth if necessary, and desinfection spray
- ...
- ...
- ...
- ...to be continued with all the little things i forgot...
germanforestgump
 
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 12:55 pm


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